AEI describes itself as nonpartisan and its website includes a statement on political advocacy: "Legal requirements aside, AEI has important reasons of its own for abstaining from any form of policy advocacy as an institution. . . . AEI takes no institutional positions on policy issues (whether or not they are currently before legislative, executive, or judicial bodies) or on any other issues."[7] This distinguishes AEI from other think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and the Center for American Progress.[10] The institute is often cited as a right-leaning counterpart to the left-leaningBrookings Institution.[11][12] The two entities have often collaborated: from 1998 to 2008, they co-sponsored the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, and in 2006, they launched the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project.[13]

AEI is the most prominent think tank associated with American neoconservatism, in both the domestic and international policy arenas.[14]Irving Kristol, widely considered a father of neoconservatism, was a senior fellow at AEI (arriving from the Congress for Cultural Freedom following the widespread revelation of the group's CIA funding)[15] and many prominent neoconservatives—including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and Joshua Muravchik—spent the bulk of their careers at AEI.[9] However, AEI is not officially neoconservative. AEI resident scholar Norman J. Ornstein, a self-identified centrist, criticizes commentators who label him a "neocon" and says that "the intellectual openness and lack of orthodoxy at AEI exceeds what I have seen on any college campus. . . . [E]ven though my writings have frequently ticked off conservative ideologues and business interests—especially my deep involvement in campaign finance reform—I have never once been told, 'You can't say that' or 'You better be careful'".[16]

AEI has taken strong stances against the farm bill and agricultural subsidies; a 2007 document authored by Bruce Gardner claimed that "There is no need for farm subsidies, and it would not really hurt anyone if we eliminated them".[17]

AEI grew out of the American Enterprise Association (AEA), which was founded in 1938 by a group of New York businessmen led by Lewis H. Brown. AEA’s original mission was to promote a "greater public knowledge and understanding of the social and economic advantages accruing to the American people through the maintenance of the system of free, competitive enterprise".[21] AEI’s founders included executives from Eli Lilly, General Mills, Bristol-Myers, Chemical Bank, Chrysler, and Paine Webber. To this day, AEA’s board is composed of top leaders from major business and financial firms.[22]

In 1943, AEA’s main offices were moved from New York City to Washington in order to capitalize on Congress’s need for help in making sense of its vastly increased wartime portfolio and more effectively oppose the New Deal. AEA’s leaders aimed not merely to assess policy but to propound classical liberal arguments for a free society and limited government, thus setting it apart from think tanks founded around the same time, like the RAND Corporation.[23] In 1944, AEA convened an Economic Advisory Board to set a high standard for research; this eventually became the Council of Academic Advisers, which, over the decades, included notable economists and social scientists like Ronald Coase, Martin Feldstein, Milton Friedman, Roscoe Pound, and James Q. Wilson.

AEA’s early work in Washington involved commissioning and distributing legislative analyses to Congress, which developed AEA’s relationships with Melvin Laird and Gerald Ford.[24] Brown eventually shifted AEA’s focus to commissioning studies of government policies. These subjects ranged from fiscal to monetary policy and from health care to energy, and authors included Earl Butz, John Lintner, former New Dealer Raymond Moley, and Felix Morley. Brown died in 1951, and AEA languished. In 1952, a group of young policymakers and public intellectuals—including Laird, William Baroody Sr., Paul McCracken, and Murray Weidenbaum—met to discuss resurrecting AEI.[24] In 1954, Baroody became executive vice president of the association.

Under Baroody’s leadership (as executive vice president from 1954 to 1962 and as president from 1962 to 1978), AEA developed as a prototypical Washington think tank, took the institutional shape it has today, and expanded its influence and intellectual heft. Baroody began to publicize and distribute AEA’s publications effectively. He also raised money for AEA, expanding its financial base beyond the business leaders on the board.[25] During the 1950s and 1960s, AEA’s work became described as more pointed and focused, including monographs by James M. Buchanan, Gottfried Haberler, Edward Banfield, Rose Friedman, and P. T. Bauer.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI)—which had been renamed in 1962—remained a marginal operation with little practical influence in the national politics until the 1970s. Baroody recruited a resident research faculty; Harvard economist Haberler was the first to join in 1972.[21] In 1977, former president Gerald Ford joined AEI as its "distinguished fellow." Ford brought several of his administration's officials with him, including Arthur Burns, Robert Bork, David Gergen, James C. Miller III, Laurence Silberman, and Antonin Scalia. Ford also founded the AEI World Forum, which he hosted until 2005. Other resident scholars hired around this time included Herbert Stein and Walter Berns. Baroody's son, William J. Baroody Jr., had been an official in the Ford White House and now also joined AEI, taking over the presidency from his father in 1978.[21]

The Reagan years illustrated the successes of the conservative and classical liberal intellectual community, but they were troubled years for AEI. Several AEI scholars decamped for the administration. That, combined with prodigious growth, diffusion of research activities,[29] and managerial problems, proved costly.[25] Moreover, some foundations then supporting AEI perceived a drift toward the center politically. Centrists like Ford, Burns, and Stein clashed with rising movement conservatives. In 1986, the John M. Olin Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation withdrew funding for the institute, pushing AEI to the brink of bankruptcy. The board of trustees fired Baroody Jr. and, after an interregnum under interim president Paul McCracken, hired Christopher DeMuth as president in December 1986.[25] DeMuth stayed on for twenty-two years.

Vice President Dick Cheney delivers his remarks on the war on terror, arguing against a withdrawal from Iraq, during a speech, Nov. 21, 2005, at the American Enterprise Institute. Michael Rubin is on the right in the front row.

AEI enjoyed close ties to the George W. Bush administration.[33] More than twenty AEI scholars served in the administration, and Bush addressed the institute on three occasions. "I admire AEI a lot—I'm sure you know that," Bush said. "After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people."[34] Cabinet officials also frequented AEI. In 2002, Danielle Pletka joined AEI to raise the profile of the foreign policy department, especially its Middle East studies program. AEI and several of its scholars—including Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle—became associated with the origins of the Iraq war.[35] In 2006–2007, AEI scholars, including Frederick W. Kagan, provided a strategic framework for the "surge" in Iraq.[36][37] The Bush administration also drew on AEI work in other areas, such as Leon Kass's appointment as the first chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics and Norman J. Ornstein's work drafting the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that Bush signed in 2002. However, some AEI scholars have been critical of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War and the economy.[38]

AEI's research is divided into seven broad categories: economic policy studies, foreign and defense policy studies, health policy studies, political and public opinion studies, social and cultural studies, education, and energy and environmental studies. Until 2008, AEI's work was divided into economics, foreign policy, and politics and social policy. AEI scholars' research is presented at conferences and meetings, in peer-reviewed journals and publications on the institute's website, and through testimony before and consultations with government panels.

Economic policy was the original focus of the American Enterprise Association, and "the Institute still keeps economic policy studies at its core".[39] According to AEI's annual report, "The principal goal is to better understand free economies—how they function, how to capitalize on their strengths, how to keep private enterprise robust, and how to address problems when they arise".[39]Kevin A. Hassett directs economic policy studies at AEI.

Throughout the beginning of the twenty-first century, scholars at the American Enterprise Institute have pushed for a more conservative approach to aiding the recession that includes major tax-cuts. AEI supported President Bush’s tax cuts in 2002 and claimed that the cuts “played a large role in helping to save the economy from a recession”. AEI also suggested that further taxes were necessary in order to attain recovery of the economy. John H. Makin, a scholar at AEI, stated that the Democrats in congress who opposed the Bush stimulus plan were foolish for doing so as he saw the plan as a major success for the administration.[7]

As the 2008 economic crisis unfolded, the Wall Street Journal stated that predictions by AEI scholars about the involvement of housing GSEs had come true.[43] In the late 1990s, Fannie Mae eased credit requirements on the mortgages it purchased and exposed itself to more risk. Peter J. Wallison warned that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's public-private status put taxpayers on the line for increased risk.[44] "Because of the agencies' dual public and private form, various efforts to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to fulfill their public mission at the cost of their profitability have failed—and will likely continue to fail", he wrote in 2001. "The only viable solution would seem to be full privatization or the adoption of policies that would force the agencies to adopt this course themselves."[45] Wallison ramped up his criticism of the GSEs throughout the 2000s. In 2006 and 2007, he moderated conferences featuring James B. Lockhart III, the chief regulator of Fannie and Freddie[46] In August 2008, after Fannie and Freddie had been backstopped by the US Treasury Department, Wallison outlined several ways of dealing with the GSEs, including "nationalization through a receivership", outright "privatization", and "privatization through a receivership".[47] The following month, Lockhart and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson took the former path by putting Fannie and Freddie into federal "conservatorship".

As the housing crisis unfolded, AEI sponsored a series of conferences featuring bearish commentators, including Lachman, Makin, and Nouriel Roubini.[48] Makin had been warning about the effects of a housing downturn on the broader economy for months.[49] Amid charges that many homebuyers did not understand their complex mortgages, Alex J. Pollock gained recognition for crafting a prototype of a one-page mortgage disclosure form.[50][51]

From 1998 to 2008, the Reg-Markets Center was the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, directed by Robert W. Hahn. The Center, which no longer exists, sponsored conferences, papers, and books on regulatory decision-making and the impact of federal regulation on consumers, businesses, and governments. It covered a range of disciplines. It also sponsored an annual Distinguished Lecture series. Past lecturers in the series have included William Baumol, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Alfred Kahn, Sam Peltzman, Richard Posner, and Cass Sunstein.[58]

AEI's work on climate change has been subject to controversy (see below). According to AEI, it "emphasizes the need to design environmental policies that protect not only nature but also democratic institutions and human liberty".[42] When the Kyoto Protocol was approaching, AEI was hesitant to encourage the U.S. to join. In an essay from written by AEI economic policy directors and scholars from the AEI outlook series of 2007, the authors discuss the Kyoto Protocol and state that the United States “should be wary of joining an international emissions-trading regime”. To back this statement, they point out that committing to the Kyoto emissions goal would be a significant and unrealistic obligation for the United States. In addition, they state that the Kyoto regulations would have an impact not only on governmental policies, but also the private sector through expanding government control over investment decisions. Scholars from AEI believed that “dilution of sovereignty” would be the result if the U.S. signed the treaty.[59] AEI scholars have strongly promoted carbon taxation as an alternative to cap-and-trade regimes. "Most economists believe a carbon tax (a tax on the quantity of CO2 emitted when using energy) would be a superior policy alternative to an emissions-trading regime," wrote Kenneth P. Green, Kevin Hassett, and Steven F. Hayward. "In fact, the irony is that there is a broad consensus in favor of a carbon tax everywhere except on Capitol Hill, where the 'T word' is anathema."[60] Other AEI scholars, including Samuel Thernstrom and Lee Lane, have argued for similar policies.[61][62] Thernstrom and Lane are codirecting a project on whether geoengineering would be a feasible way to "buy us time to make [the] transition [from fossil fuels] while protecting us from the worst potential effects of warming".[63]

AEI's foreign and defense policy studies department, directed by Danielle Pletka, is the part of the institute most commonly associated with neoconservatism,[14] especially by its critics.[68][69] Prominent foreign-policy neoconservatives at AEI include Richard Perle, Gary Schmitt, and Paul Wolfowitz. John Bolton, often said to be a neoconservative,[70][71] has said that he is not one, as his primary focus is on American interests, not democracy promotion.[72][73]Joshua Muravchik and Michael Ledeen spent many years at AEI, although they departed at around the same time as Reuel Marc Gerecht in 2008 in what was rumored to be a "purge" of neoconservatives at the institute, possibly "signal[ing] the end of [neoconservatism's] domination over the think tank over the past several decades",[74] although Muravchik later said it was the result of personality and management conflicts.[74]

U.S. national security strategy, defense policy, and the "surge"[edit]

In late 2006, the security situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate, and the Iraq Study Group proposed a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops and further engagement of Iraq's neighbors. Consulting with AEI's Iraq Planning Group, Frederick W. Kagan published an AEI report entitled Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq calling for "phase one" of a change in strategy to focus on "clearing and holding" neighborhoods and securing the population; a troop escalation of seven Army brigades and Marine regiments; and a renewed emphasis on reconstruction, economic development, and jobs.[37] As the report was being drafted, Kagan and Keane were briefing President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and othe senior Bush administration officials behind the scenes. According to Bob Woodward, "[Peter J.] Schoomaker was outraged when he saw news coverage that retired Gen. Jack Keane, the former Army vice chief of staff, had briefed the president Dec. 11 about a new Iraq strategy being proposed by the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank. 'When does AEI start trumping the Joint Chiefs of Staff on this stuff?' Schoomaker asked at the next chiefs' meeting."[75]

Kagan, Keane, and Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman presented the plan at a January 5, 2007, event at AEI. Bush announced the change of strategy on January 10 the idea having "won additional support among some officials as a result of a detailed study by Gen. Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff at the Army, and Frederick W. Kagan, a military specialist, that was published by the American Enterprise Institute".[36] Kagan authored three subsequent reports monitoring the progress of the surge.[76]

AEI's defense policy researchers, who also include Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly, also work on issues related to the U.S. military forces' size and structure and military partnerships with allies (both bilaterally and through institutions such as NATO). Schmitt directs AEI's Program on Advanced Strategic Studies, which "analyzes the long-term issues that will impact America’s security and its ability to lead internationally".[42]

Asian studies at AEI covers "the rise of China as an economic and political power; Taiwan’s security and economic agenda; Japan’s military transformation; the threat of a nuclear North Korea; and the impact of regional alliances and rivalries on U.S. military and economic relationships in Asia".[42] AEI has published several reports on Asia.[77] Papers in AEI's Tocqueville on China Project series "elicit the underlying civic culture of post-Mao China, enabling policymakers to better understand the internal forces and pressures that are shaping China's future".[78]

AEI's Europe program was previously housed under the auspices of the New Atlantic Initiative, which was directed by Radek Sikorski before his return to Polish politics in 2005. Leon Aron's work forms the core of the institute's program on Russia. AEI scholars tend to view Russia as posing "strategic challenges for the West".[42]

AEI has historically devoted significant attention to the Middle East, especially through the work of former resident scholars Ledeen and Muravchik. Pletka's research focus also includes the Middle East, and she coordinated a conference series on empowering democratic dissidents and advocates in the Arab World.[81] In 2009, AEI launched the Critical Threats Project, led by Kagan, to "highlight the complexity of the global challenges the United States faces with a primary focus on Iran and al Qaeda's global influence".[42] The project includes IranTracker.org, with contributions from Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin, among others.

For several years, AEI and the Federalist Society cosponsored NGOWatch, which was later subsumed into Global Governance Watch, "a web-based resource that addresses issues of transparency and accountability in the United Nations, NGOs, and related international organizations".[42] NGOWatch returned as a subsite of Global Governance Watch, led by Jon Entine. AEI scholars focusing on international organizations includes John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,[82] and John Yoo, who researches international law and sovereignty.[42]

AEI scholars have engaged in health policy research since the institute's early days. A Center for Health Policy Research was established in 1974[88] For many years, Robert B. Helms led the health department. AEI's long-term focuses in health care have included national insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, pharmaceutical innovation, health care competition, and cost control.[42] The Center was replaced in the mid-1980s with the Health Policy Studies Program, which continues to this day. The AEI Press has published dozens of books on health policy since the 1970s. Since 2003, AEI has published the Health Policy Outlook[dead link] series on new developments in U.S. and international health policy. In addition, AEI also published “A Better Prescription” to outline their ideal plan to healthcare reform. In the report, a great amount of emphasis is placed on placing the money and control in the hands of the consumers and continuing the market-based system of healthcare. They also acknowledge that this form of healthcare “relies on financial incentives rather than central direction and control, and it recognizes that a one-size-fits-all approach will not work in a country as diverse as ours”.[7] <http://www.aei.org/paper/100087>

Ted Frank, the director of the AEI Legal Center, focuses on liability law and tort reform.[105]Michael S. Greve focuses on constitutional law and federalism, including federal preemption.[106] Greve is a fixture in the conservative legal movement. According to Jonathan Rauch, in 2005, Greve convened "a handful of free-market activists and litigators met in a windowless 11th-floor conference room at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington" in opposition to the legality of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. "By the time the meeting finished, the participants had decided to join forces and file suit. . . . No one paid much attention. But the yawning stopped on May 18, [2009,] when the Supreme Court announced it will hear the case."[107]

AEI's work on political processes and institutions has been a central part of the institute's research programs since the 1970s. The AEI Press published a series of several dozen volumes in the 1970s and 1980s called "At the Polls"; in each volume, scholars would assess a country's recent presidential or parliamentary election. AEI scholars have been called upon to observe and assess constitutional conventions and elections worldwide. In the early 1980s, AEI scholars were commissioned by the U.S. government to monitor plebiscites in Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands.[112] Another landmark in AEI's political studies is After the People Vote.[113] AEI's work on election reform continued into the 1990s and 2000s; Ornstein led a working group that drafted the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.[114][115]

AEI's social and cultural studies program dates to the 1970s, when William Baroody Sr., perceiving the importance of the philosophical and cultural underpinnings of modern economics and politics,[116] invited social and religious thinkers like Irving Kristol and Michael Novak to take up residence at AEI. Since then, AEI has sponsored research on a wide variety of issues, including education, religion, race and gender, and social welfare. AEI's current president, Arthur C. Brooks, rose to prominence with survey analysis on philanthropy and happiness.

AEI is often identified as a supporter of vouchers,[129] but Hess has been critical of school vouchers: "[I]t is by now clear that aggressive reforms to bring market principles to American education have failed to live up to their billing. . . . In the school choice debate, many reformers have gotten so invested in the language of 'choice' that they seem to forget choice is only half of the market equation. Markets are about both supply and demand—and, while 'choice' is concerned with emboldening consumer demand, the real action when it comes to prosperity, productivity, and progress is typically on the supply side."[130]

In 1964, William J. Baroody, Sr., and several of his top staff at AEI, including Karl Hess, moonlighted as policy advisers and speechwriters for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. "Even though Baroody and his staff sought to support Goldwater on their own time—without using the institution's resources—AEI came under close scrutiny from the IRS in the years following the campaign," Andrew Rich writes.[10] Representative Wright Patman subpoenaed the institute's tax papers, and the IRS investigated for two years.[131] After this, AEI's officers scrupulously attempted to avoid even the appearance of political advocacy.[10]

Some AEI staff and fellows have been critical of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international scientific body tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity.[132][133] In February 2007, a number of sources, including the British newspaper The Guardian, reported that the AEI had sent letters to scientists offering $10,000 plus travel expenses and additional payments, asking them to critique the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.[134] This offer has been criticized as bribery.[135][136] The letters alleged that the IPCC was "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent, and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and asked for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".[137][138]

According to the Guardian article, the AEI received $1.6 million in funding from ExxonMobil. The article further notes that former ExxonMobil CEO Lee R. Raymond is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees. This story was repeated by Newsweek, which drew criticism from its contributing editor Robert J. Samuelson because "this accusation was long ago discredited, and Newsweek shouldn't have lent it respectability. (The company says it knew nothing of the global-warming grant, which involved issues of climate modeling. And its 2006 contribution to the think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, was small: $240,000 out of a $28 million budget.)"[139] The Guardian article was disputed both by AEI[140] and in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.[141] The rebuttals claimed factual errors and distortions, noting the ExxonMobil funding was spread out over a ten-year period and totaled less than 1% of AEI's budget. The Wall Street Journal editorial stated: "AEI doesn't lobby, didn't offer money to scientists to question global warming, and the money it did pay for climate research didn't come from Exxon."

AEI denies that the organization is skeptical about global warming. Criticizing the story as part of a "climate inquisition" published in "the left-wing press", the AEI's Steven Hayward and Kenneth Green wrote in The Weekly Standard:

[I]t has never been true that we ignore mainstream science; and anyone who reads AEI publications closely can see that we are not "skeptics" about warming. It is possible to accept the general consensus about the existence of global warming while having valid questions about the extent of warming, the consequences of warming, and the appropriate responses. In particular, one can remain a policy skeptic, which is where we are today, along with nearly all economists.[142]

Former scholar Steven Hayward has described efforts to reduce global warming as being "based on exaggerations and conjecture rather than science".[143] He also has stated that "even though the leading scientific journals are thoroughly imbued with environmental correctness and reject out of hand many articles that don't conform to the party line, a study that confounds the conventional wisdom is published almost every week".[144] Likewise, former scholar Kenneth Green has referred to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as "the positively silly idea of establishing global-weather control by actively managing the atmosphere's greenhouse-gas emissions", and endorsed Michael Crichton's novel State of Fear for having "educated millions of readers about climate science".[145]

Christopher DeMuth, former AEI president, accepted that the earth has warmed in recent decades, but he stated that "it's not clear why this happened" and charged as well that the IPCC "has tended to ignore many distinguished physicists and meteorologists whose work casts doubt on the influence of greenhouse gases on global temperature trends".[146] Fellow James Glassman also disputes the prevailing scientific opinion on climate change, having written numerous articles criticizing the Kyoto accords and climate science more generally for Tech Central Station.[147] He has supported the views of U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, who claims that “global warming is ‘the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,’”[148] and, like Green, cites Crichton's novel State of Fear, which "casts serious doubt on global warming and extremists who espouse it".[149] Joel Schwartz, an AEI visiting fellow, stated: "The Earth has indeed warmed during the last few decades and may warm further in the future. But the pattern of climate change is not consistent with the greenhouse effect being the main cause."[150]

After Energy SecretarySteven Chu recommended painting roofs and roads white in order to reflect sunlight back into space and therefore reduce global warming, AEI's magazine The American endorsed the idea. It also stated that "ultimately we need to look more broadly at creative ways of reducing the harmful effects of climate change in the long run."[151]The American editor-in-chief and fellow Nick Schulz endorsed a carbon tax over a cap and trade program in the Christian Science Monitor on February 13, 2009. He stated that it "would create a market price for carbon emissions and lead to emissions reductions or new technologies that cut greenhouse gases."[152]

In October 2007, resident scholar and executive director of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies Robert W. Hahn commented:

Fending off both sincere and sophistic opposition to cap-and-trade will no doubt require some uncomfortable compromises. Money will be wasted on unpromising R&D; grotesquely expensive renewable fuels may gain a permanent place at the subsidy trough. And, as noted above, there will always be a risk of cheating. But the first priority should be to seize the day, putting a domestic emissions regulation system in place. Without America's political leadership and economic muscle behind it, an effective global climate stabilization strategy isn't possible.[153]

AEI visiting scholar N. Gregory Mankiw wrote in The New York Times in support of a carbon tax on September 16, 2007. He remarked that "there is a broad consensus. The scientists tell us that world temperatures are rising because humans are emitting carbon into the atmosphere. Basic economics tells us that when you tax something, you normally get less of it."[154]

After his termination, Frum clarified that his article had been "welcomed and celebrated" by AEI President Arthur Brooks, and that he'd had been asked to leave because "these are hard times." Brooks had offered Frum the opportunity to write for AEI on a nonsalaried basis, but Frum declined.[157] The following day, journalist Mike Allen published a conversation with Frum, in which Frum expressed a belief that his termination was the result of pressure from donors. According to Frum, "AEI represents the best of the conservative world...But the elite isn’t leading anymore...I think Arthur [Brooks] took no pleasure in this. I think he was embarrassed."[161]

^James G. McGann (Director) (January 20, 2012). "The Global Go To Think Tank Report, 2011". Retrieved June 10, 2014. Other AEI "Top Think Tank" rankings include #32 in Security and International Affairs, #3 in Health Policy, #10 in Domestic Economic Policy, #9 in International Economic Policy, and #7 in Social Policy. By "Special Achievement" AEI's rating is #13 in Most Innovative Policy Ideas/Proposals, #13 in Outstanding Policy-Oriented Public Policy Research Programs, #20 in Best Use of the Internet or Social Media to Engage the Public, #13 in Best Use of the Media (Print or Electronic) to Communicate Programs and Research, #15 in Best External Relations/Public Engagement Programs, and #13 in Greatest Impact on Public Policy (Global).

^R. Kent Weaver categorizes think tanks in three kinds: "studentless universities," "contract research organizations," and "advocacy tanks"; he lists Brookings and AEI as examples of the first, RAND as an example of the second, and the Heritage Foundation as an example of the third.Weaver, R. Kent (1989). "The Changing World of Think Tanks". PS: Political Science and Politics (PS: Political Science and Politics, Vol. 22, No. 3) 22 (3): 563–78. doi:10.2307/419623. JSTOR419623.

^Scholars also back the carbon taxation policy due to an incentive to reduce the use of carbon-intensive energy that would result. “The increased costs of energy would flow through the economy, ultimately giving consumers incentives to reduce their use of electricity, transportation fuels, home heating oil, and so forth”. Along with consumers reducing their use of carbon-energy, they will be inclined to buy more efficient appliances, cars, and homes that apply “more attention to energy conservation”. Green, Kenneth P.; Hassett, Kevin A.; Hayward, Stephen F. (1 June 2007). "Climate Change: Caps vs. Taxes?". Environmental Policy Outlook (American Enterprise Institute). Archived from the original on 18 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-07.